SCOTUS NEWS
By Amy Howe
January 10, 2025
at 8:28 p.m.
The court added three cases to its 2024-45 docket on Friday. (Katie Barlow)
The Supreme Court Friday evening added three new cases to its docket for the 2024-25 term. The cases, which involve issues ranging from the constitutionality of appointments to an HHS task force to student loan forgiveness and the mootness of tax cases, will likely be among the last cases argued during the current term.
In Becerra v. Braidwood ManagementThe justices agreed to take up a challenge to the structure of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a part of the Department of Health and Human Services that issues recommendations for preventive medical services. The Affordable Care Act requires health insurers to cover some of these recommended services for patients at no cost.
Four individuals and two small businesses who object on religious grounds to the ACA’s requirement that health insurers cover pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) medications, which can be very effective in preventing infection with HIV, were brought before a federal court. They argued that the task force’s structure violates the Appointments Clause of the Constitution, which requires “principal” leaders to be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.
The district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit agreed. The appeals court recognized that the HHS Secretary can remove task force members at any time, for virtually any reason. But because the HHS secretary did not, in the court’s view, supervise the task force members, the appeals court determined, their appointments nevertheless violated the Constitution.
The appeals court denied the government’s request to remove the provision providing for the independence of the task force, thereby allowing the HHS Secretary to review some of the recommendations made by the task force.
The Biden administration asked the Supreme Court to intervene, telling the justices that the 5th Circuit’s ruling “threatens enormous legal and practical consequences.”
The challengers, while defending the 5th Circuit’s ruling, joined the Biden administration in arguing that reconsideration was warranted. Represented by Jonathan Mitchell, who argued on behalf of President-elect Donald Trump in Colorado’s effort to disqualify him from the 2024 ballot due to his role in the January 6, 2021 attacks on the U.S. Capitol, the challengers also rejected that that they described. such as the Biden administration’s “dire predictions of what could happen if the appeals court decision stands.”
In Ministry of Education v. Texas Colleges and Career Schoolsthe justices will consider a 5th Circuit ruling that suspended implementation of a rule intended to streamline the process for reviewing student loan forgiveness applications from borrowers whose schools defrauded them or were closed.
The justices declined to answer a second question in the case, challenging the 5th Circuit’s decision to block implementation of the rule across the United States – a “nationwide” or “universal” injunction – rather than simply prohibit the Department of Education from enforcing the rule. the rule to for-profit colleges that challenge the rule. The Biden administration has asked the justices to rule on the merits of such injunctions in a case currently on the court’s emergency docket, but the justices have yet to act on that request.
The last of the three cases, Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Zuchoccurs when a tax hearing becomes moot – that is, it is no longer an ongoing controversy.
All three cases are expected to be argued in April, with a decision expected in late June or early July.
This article was originally published in Howe on the Court.
